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Sharon Angle Refuses to Take Back Apparent Endorsement of Armed Insurrection

This post first appeared on Think Progress.
Among the many radical statements that Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle has made, two that stand out are her agreement that there are “domestic enemies” in Congress, and her seeming endorsement of armed insurrection, saying “Second Amendment remedies” may be necessary if “Congress keeps going the way it is.”
As ThinkProgress has noted, Angle has refused to distance herself from either of these claims. In an interview with a Nevada radio host last month, Angle twice refused to directly respond to her “enemies” claim, saying only that Democratic policies have “definitely hurt our country.” When confronted with the “Second Amendment remedies” statement in June, Angle refused to comment, and her spokesperson eventually blocked the reporter posing the question from asking any more questions, calling him “‘an idiot’ and another term that can’t be repeated.”
In two recent interviews, Angle yet again refused to disavow her dangerous comments. In an interview with ABC, Angle even seemed to double down on the “enemies” claim, saying lawmakers who passed legislation she does not support are “certainly not friends”:

ABC News: Do we have enemies of the country inside the walls of Congress?
ANGLE: Certainly people who pass these kinds of policies — Obamacare, cap and trade, stimulus, bailout — they’re certainly not friends to the free market system.
ABC News: So, what are they?
ANGLE: They’re not friends.

In an interview with CNN, when asked about the “enemies” comment, Angle wouldn’t back away from it, and even refused to say whether or not President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are “enemies of the state.” She also refused to clarify or back down from her “Second Amendment remedies” statement, saying only that her comment was “spoken in a context”:

REPORTER: Do you feel that the President or Harry Reid are enemies of the state?
ANGLE: I don’t think anybody mentioned any names during that conversation and of course those weren’t my words. [...]
REPORTER: And what about that statement where you said a Second Amendment response may be necessary if things keep going the way they’re going. And you said we may have to take Harry Reid out. What was all that about?
ANGLE: Well, once again, as we said, those things were spoken in a context. … But those are not the issues people are really concerned about. They’re concerned about our homes, our economy, our jobs. That’s what people are concerned about. He’s wanting to take out little pieces of segments of conversations that were about general discussions. We were talking generally about the Founding Fathers and their intent with the Second Amendment.

Angle repeatedly complained that her comments were taken out of context, but when given a clear opportunity to correct the record, she declined. If Angle is trying to “represent mainstream America,” as she said in the CNN interview, then why does she refuse to state clearly that she doesn’t support armed insurrection?
Angle’s extremism has even alienated her own supporters, with a Las Vegas Review-Journal/8NewsNow poll showing that “2 in 3 self-identified supporters” of Angle wish “another Republican was on top of the ticket instead.” In June, Reno Mayor Bob Cashell, a Republican from Angle’s hometown, called the Senate nominee “an ultra right winger,” adding, “I can’t support her.”

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